


not regretted a day

by venndaai



Category: Bedlam's Bard - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 20:42:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20895812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: Korendil experiences the seasons.





	not regretted a day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cher/gifts).

  1. Summer

There is Cold Iron in the frame of the bus, but the plastic skin of the vehicle provides enough insulation that Kory can sit in his narrow seat and enjoy the fields passing by outside without being distracted too much by the discomfort. He has not traveled this way in ten years, he reminds himself, though it still seems difficult to believe. He tries to discern any changes time might have wrought on the landscape of grape vines and golden meadows. 

But it’s difficult to focus, when his attention keeps turning back to the row of seats across from him. 

“I’ve gotta say,” Beth Kentraine says, “you shift around more than a kid on a sugar high, Kory.” 

Suddenly self-conscious, Kory stills his movements. Beth’s dark eyes are amused. She herself is perfectly motionless, but in a way that seems calm and relaxed, not like she’s holding herself in place. Eric, his head on her shoulder, appears deeply asleep. 

“Should we not speak softly?” Kory asks, his own voice little more than a whisper. 

“Nah,” Beth says. “He sleeps like a log on long bus rides.” There’s a well of fondness in her voice, a tone of long familiarity. It makes Kory ache, inside. He wants to know how Eric sleeps on long bus rides. He wants to know everything. 

2\. Fall

What Kory remembers about San Francisco is the mortals. The colors they painted their dwellings, the bright clothing worn by those dwelling in the Haight, the pretty young people out at night and the love they so eagerly gave to Arvindel and his friends. 

Returning in 1990, he realizes he’d forgotten the fog, the cool bursts of rain, the way the city wandered up and down hillsides. 

“You think this is rainy?” Eric says. “You should try living in New York.” 

They’re huddled beneath the overhang of a skyscraper. Outside their spot of shelter, the rain pours down in a sheet. There are patterns in it, hints of great beauty, that threaten to mesmerize Kory if he looks for too long. He has always enjoyed rain, what small amounts of it he saw in Los Angeles. There is no rain Underhill. 

But he looks away from the rain, and sees Eric, shivering. Soaked in rainwater, the colors of Eric’s busking costume are subdued, and his magically-dyed hair lies flat against his skull. Even the glow of his Bardic power, that lights him up from inside like the most beautiful star in Kory’s vision, is muted by his physical misery. He clings to the leather bag containing his flute, protecting it with his arms from any stray drop of water. 

Kory longs to reach out with magic and make Eric warm and dry. It’s an intense, physical longing, but it’s also absurd. Eric has explained with, for him, unusual patience why he is against using magic for such things. And he is a Bard. If he wished, he could send the rain away, and call the sun down to dry the entire street in moments. 

Kory knows this, and most of the time, he is very aware and respectful of Eric’s greater power. But sometimes- sometimes Eric looks so very mortal. Fragile. 

He reaches out instead with his fingers, and brushes a wet lock of hair out of Eric’s face. Eric grins at him, and Kory is grateful, now, for the rain that has driven their potential patrons indoors, for the lack of an audience to make Eric tense and move away from him.

3\. Winter

There’s frost on the grass in the garden. Kory admires it, at first, until he realizes some of the plants have died, their cells ruptured as they froze. 

His first instinct is to call them back to life, make his little square of earth verdantly green, encourage them to bloom into a profusion of colors, like every garden Underhill. But that isn’t how things work Above. Even the flowers are mortal, here. 

“Aren’t you cold?”

He turns, expects to see Beth in her pyjamas, but she’s dressed, not in her silk and leather but in mortal clothing, what Beth and Eric call a suit. She hands him a mug of tea and kisses him quickly. 

He’s not cold, not the way his lovers experience cold, but the mug of tea in his hands is pleasant anyway, a warm contrast to the cool air. The scent of it is even more pleasant. 

“Greg called. He needs me for a thing. I might have to stay overnight.” 

“Should we come?” Kory asks. He feels concerned. The three of them haven’t spent a night apart in months. 

“Better not. Greg likes you guys well enough, but I think you’re a little… intimidating? Besides,” she says, and sighs, “I think it’ll be good for us to spend a little bit of time not packed together.” 

Kory remembers last night. The argument. Beth radiating anger, Eric sullen. Kory, confused, afraid, not knowing what to say. 

Beth puts a hand on his face. “Don’t worry, Kory. Humans get like this in the winter. Eric’s just worried about money, and I’m- well. We’ll get over it. Hopefully I’ll get some information out of Greg about a job we can do this week.” She kisses him again. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t let Eric freeze.”

“Freeze?” Kory asks, alarmed, and she laughs at him. Not literally, he hears in his head, right before she says it. It’s become a common refrain.

Still, after he’s watched her leave by the old, slightly warped garden gate, he can’t help looking back at the silver-edged leaves, imagining Eric crumbling into frost. 

There’s a book on gardening in the library. To get there, Kory climbs the winding staircase up through the quiet house. 

“It’s not a library yet,” Beth had said. “It’s just a dusty room with three boxes of random books you got at a swap meet.”

“It is a place for books,” Kory had replied, serenely. “So it is a library.” 

The library Underhill at Elfhame Sun-Descending is so vast one can get lost in it for days, and contains tomes centuries old, manuscripts of ancient power, and records of the Court back to the very first days of memory. Kory prefers this library. Because it is his, he thinks, and even more importantly, because it is Beth’s and Eric’s. Like them, it will grow and change, and give back the love that is put into it. 

The book is in the back of the second box. Kory digs it out, and sits on the floor beneath the high window, enjoying the patch of morning sunlight.

A few scant hours later, he feels Eric awake, in the room beneath him. Kory tucks the book under his arm, and descends the stairs. Eric has burrowed under the thick quilt, wrapping it around him since he does not currently have to share it. 

“Ugh,” Eric mutters. “It’s way too cold to get up.” 

“All right,” Kory says agreeably, and climbs onto the waterbed. It shifts with his weight, but he has grown accustomed to its antics and manages not to disturb Eric too badly. He wriggles under the blanket and wraps his arms around Eric. 

“Oh, stop that, you bastard, you’re freezing cold,” Eric yelps, trying to pull away.

“Oh,” Kory says. “I did not realize. I am sorry.” He does not, however, let go. “May I apologize by warming you up another way?”

“You’re not sorry at all,” Eric says, but he responds very satisfactorily when Kory kisses him. 

Kory has had elven lovers. Compared to Eric and Beth, they were all cold and passionless. Those of his relatives who disdain intimacy with humans have no idea what they’re missing, he thinks. 

They shower fast, afterwards, the water just barely above freezing, the hot water tank still not replaced yet. We must get to that soon, Kory thinks, listening to Eric’s teeth chatter. He sinks a bit of his power into the pipes, heats the water just enough to be comfortable. Eric doesn’t complain. 

They go down to the kitchen for breakfast. Eric goes through the elaborate arcane ritual of coffee-making. Kory microwaves a Pop-Tart, since Beth isn’t here to keep him away from the wonders of the kitchen appliances. 

“Where’s Beth?” Eric asks, once he’s started sipping his coffee. Kory tells him where Beth has gone, and what she said.

“Aw, man,” Eric says. “I feel bad about snapping at her last night. I was just tired.” He looks at Kory, radiating concern. “We didn’t upset you too badly, did we?”

One of the things that amazes Kory the most about humans is their capacity for forgiveness. If Kory argued with an elf the way Beth and Eric had argued last night, it would cause a feud for decades. But after only a few hours, Eric and Beth have given up their anger. He supposes with such short lives, humans can’t afford to waste time with grudges- but he turns his mind away from that path of thought, as he’s been doing more and more, of late. 

“I am fine,” Kory says, and he is. 

“Too cold for busking today,” Eric says, which Kory suspects is a diplomatic way of avoiding saying that without Beth’s music, Eric and Kory won’t make enough to justify the trip into town. “Let’s work on the house.”

It’s a quiet day, peaceful in the workshop with magic flowing between him and Eric. He misses Beth’s presence, but he can sense her, away to the north, not near but not too far. The bonds of their triangle can stretch without breaking. 

As the sun begins to set, however, the temperature drops dramatically. “Shit,” Kory says, when he notices Eric shivering. Eric giggles, as he always does when Kory swears in the human style. 

“I don’t want to stop working,” Eric says. “I feel like I’ll freeze solid as soon as I stop moving. But it’s too dark to keep going. Let’s go eat something.” 

The kitchen is welcoming with the lights on, though they still haven’t finished restoring the counters. Kory makes tea. Eric sits on the couch in the living room, knees pulled up to his chest, wearing three shirts at once. He plays a few trills on his flute, and Kory’s heart races the way it always does when Eric plays, but then Eric sighs and puts the instrument carefully down. 

“Come over here,” he says, and Kory does. Eric snuggles into the space between Kory’s body and the edge of the couch. For all he’s gained muscle and weight, he still seems to have an ability to avoid taking up space. 

“Don’t worry,” Eric says. “This isn’t too bad. I remember one winter when I was busking in New York, I nearly got my tongue frozen to my flute, it was so cold. It was…” He shook his head. “It was bad. Sometimes I still can’t believe I’m here and not there.” 

“I understand,” Kory says, thinking of the endless sameness of Underhill. Thinking of his torturous not-sleep in the Grove. Thinking of the months when Eric had been gone, when he’d thought that Eric was dead. 

A hundred years from now, when Eric and Beth were dead for real, would he wander through the world, unable to understand why he wasn’t here, in this house, with them? 

“You look like you’re brooding,” Eric says. “Stop it.” He starts to whistle._ Banish Misfortune._

The cold and the dark lift away, and there is nothing but the music. 

4\. Spring

The roses are Kory’s triumph. Their blossoms are huge and fragrant, and they cover the side of the house in every conceivable shade of red and pink. Even Arvindel is impressed.

There are no roses below the hill. Like so many things, they need the sun. 

Beth lounges on a bench beneath a trellis of roses, picking out a tune on her guitar. Her voice, sweet and strong and softer than it ever was when they played together, adds words to the melody.

_ And her eyes, oh, her eyes! They begged me to stay _

_ And twenty years later, I've not regretted a day. _


End file.
